Crash bars, part like no duh

I finally got a chance to start painting on the crash bars. I got another brass wire wheel for my dremel type tool and knocked a bit more rust off the smaller bits. Roughed up all pieces with some sand paper. I originally was going to use 600 but it didn’t seem rough enough for the primer so I went with some 400 grit. After all parts were scuffed I hung the bars from string, placed the attachment hardware on a piece of cardboard, and pushed the nuts and bolts through the same cardboard and got to spraying. I’ve got two thin coats of primer on all pieces now with wet sanding in between. The sun’s going down so I’ll finish it tomorrow hopefully. The good news is I picked these up for $50 with all the necessary pieces to attach them. They need some cleaning up, but I want them black instead of chrome anyways. I just found these exact same bars, minus the U-bolt necessary for mounting on eBay going for $110. I think I got a deal.

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…now with matching helmet!

All of the blue parts on my bike are actually decals on black paint. CBdecals.com sells the decals for this bike. I ordered just the tail section decals from the website and affixed them to my helmet. CBdecals shipped them right away and they look great. For only $20 my helmet now looks like it was professionally matched to my bike.

Working on the 700 already…but it runs again!

My new 700 died on me last Monday. I rode it to Wal-mart, no problems at all. Bought my crap, hopped on the bike, turned the key, pulled in the clutch, pushed the go button, and…NOTHING. I tried push starting it, NOTHING. Tried the button again, and VROOOOM! I started hauling ass for home and almost got there when it died on me again, this time while I was riding. The thing that caught my notice was that the RPMs went straight to zero even though I could still feel the momentum dragging the engine around. I had the wiring diagram on a PDF, but I prefer to look at it on paper. What I was looking for was whatever the tachometer and the starter had in common…

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My new 700S!!!

I finally got the bike I’ve always wanted. I bought it off of craigslist in San Antonio this weekend. It’s an 84 with 19K miles on it. Only a few minor cosmetic blemishes but I think it’s great. I went over to Nick’s so he could help me unload it then he drove my truck and tried to take pictures of me while I rode it home. Once we got on the freeway though between him having to shift and steer and snap pictures and try and run me off the road we finally gave up on that plan and I pulled ahead. The sad news is I only got to put about 5 miles on it before I had to prepare for my flight back to Cleveland 🙁 So what am I going to do with the 650? I’m deciding if I should paint it or not before I sell it.

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